The world's largest particle accelerator is launching a major update that will allow it to extract 10 times more data and help unlock the secrets of physics. The European Organization for Nuclear Research, aka CERN, has begun work on a project aimed at increasing the number of infinitesimal collisions, "luminosity", at the Large Hadron Collider by installing high-tech magnets.
CERN says the update is expected to bring more data as early as 2026. According to the organization, the collider, located in a ring on the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, has worked excellently since its inception in 2010. The budget for High-Luminosity LHC, a new chapter in the history of the famous collider, will be about $ 950 million.
Six years ago, the Large Hadron Collider "saw" and confirmed the existence of a subatomic particle - the Higgs boson, once again confirming the Standard Model of physics. The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, long predicted by the Standard Model and long awaited, did not come as a surprise, however. But it was another major victory for the Standard Model over the dark forces that particle physicists regularly expect on the horizon. Physicists do not like that the Standard Model does not correspond to their ideas of a simple one, they are worried about its mathematical inconsistency, and they are also looking for a way to include gravity in the equation. Obviously, this translates into different theories of physics, which may be after the Standard Model. This is how grand unification theories, supersymmetry, technocolor and string theory emerged.
Unfortunately, theories outside the Standard Model have not found successful experimental evidence and no major flaws in the Standard Model. Fifty years later, it is the Standard Model that is closest to being a theory of everything. That is why, in the first place, successful working mechanisms like the LHC will be updated.
Ilya Khel